My Days as an undercover homeless person

November 5^th, 2002

 

Statement of Karen Leonard to City Council regarding Brookwood Shelter

 

Dear City Council Members;

 

For five days and nights, I lived at the Brookwood shelter as a homeless person. This has given me insights into the living conditions of these residences that I believe is important to those who have rule over their lives.

 

Although people from Catholic Charities refer to Brookwood as these people’s “home” whenever they try to prevent people from the community coming into the shelter to interact and work with the people there, in reality, this place more closely resembles a “halfway house” for criminals. Although they have committed no greater sin than not having enough money to afford a place of their own in Sonoma County, we treat them as though they are the enemy in our midst.

 

Imagine living these realities; you work at night, but you are not allowed in your “home” to sleep during the day. When your children get out from school, they cannot go “home” for many hours, and you cannot afford day care. If either you or your children are sick, you cannot go “home”. Although you are not allowed to have any visitors in your “home”, police are allowed to walk through your room any time they choose. Although a budget for $7,000 dollars has been allotted in monies paid by taxpayers for your phone use, the only phone available to you is a pay phone you must share with 40 other people. Although an ample budget was set for furnishing, the only furniture there is was donated from the sheriff’s jail. Although there is a budget for food, the only food that arrives is food that the grocery stores can no longer sell because it is no longer fresh. You must mop floors while people are walking on them; because you cannot do them when everyone is gone…you are not allowed inside then, either. You may have to come “home” from a long day of work or job hunting and cook for 40 people. You must sleep with the lights on. You are blamed for everything that goes wrong, and told you deserve this because you are homeless. Although you need a good paying job to be able to pay rent, the only well paid people in your “home” are the guards who are not there to keep you safe, but to keep your neighbors safe from you. Even though the waiting list to get subsidized housing is two years or longer, you are told your stay here can only be at most a few months. The stress factors in your life, and those around you are stupendous, and yet you are told in countless ways, every day, you are not worthy of respect and the neighbors loathe the sight of you. And you must constantly remind yourself, that you are the “lucky” one, staying in the best shelter Santa Rosa offers, and complaints can land you back on the street.

 

These were my experiences during my short stay at Brookwood. After that I began showing up at the Brookwood’s Advisory meetings. I was not welcomed, in fact I was threatened to be arrested for impersonating a homeless person, and ordered to leave. When I finished laughing I asked for the statute that makes pretending to be homeless a crime. I stayed and returned again the next month, even though again I was told to leave.

The advisory committee went through quite a lot of commotion during those two visits of mine. After having talked with the “neighbor” who was selected to be on this committee I discovered that this committee has never taken a vote. It has never followed the original guidelines of its conception. Police presence has often outnumbered the people from the public. The public members have been refused their right to see Brookwood’s budget, and have been told they have no business discussing the operations of Brookwood. Although the advisory committee is suppose to be composed of a majority of people from the community and be ruled by consensus, in the six months since its conception it has yet to achieve either of these goals.

 

But one amazing thing did occur. A tenacious woman from the community insisted in being able to interact with the residences of Brookwood. She was told firmly that she would be interfering with the “rights” of the homeless to their “privacy”.  Fortunately, another public member pointed out that Catholic Charities has no authority over the lives of these people once they are outside of the shelter. A magical thing then occurred, the people inside the shelter and the people in the rest of the community organized. They created a wonderful Halloween party for the children inside Brookwood, and began to socialize together. I believe this is the start of something wonderful. This happened in spite of the Advisory committee’s efforts to marginalize and exclude the outside community from participating with the inside community of Brookwood.

 

If the City Council allows Catholic Charities to have complete authority over this public advisory committee there will be no oversight of how this agency runs Brookwood, and oversight is sorely needed. I must also remind everyone here, that the residences of Brookwood are part of our community and are not to be treated like property. The rights of the people in this shelter need to be defended, and respected. Most of the people in Brookwood were born and raised here in Sonoma County; they must be regarded as part of the community and not segregated and alienated from the rest of the community. Changes in policy must be allowed in order to improve the quality of life for these people within our community. There is more to the public’s concerns than simple fear and ignorance, and yet these are the only sentiments being catered to. I fear that caring for the homeless has become big business, both costly and largely ineffective. As a tax payer, whose funds are used in services to the poor, I demand greater accountability and transparency in these operations. It is not the people without houses I fear, but those whose livelihoods come from distributing services to the poor that I suspect of having vested interest in keeping the haves and have-not’s separated.